Bath

I'm in bath now. I really like it here. I could stay longer. I've been on a free guided walking tour which was good for pointing out interesting architectural things such as the dunny hole in the back garden wall (not what they called it) and how the fronts of buildings all had to fit the style but the back could be whatever they wanted. So the backs of the apartment blocks are really varied and messy looking while the fronts are all uniform. I've walked around in the rain too. I went to the roman baths of course. They're definitely worth seeing. The whole town is worth seeing. It's like nowhere I've been before and seems like you are not in England. Not having been to many places i can't say what it's like but it doesn't seem englandy.
And I went on a bus trip to stone henge so I've been the ultimate tourist. They are a nice bunch of stones. I was relieved to see that they are bigger than the ones on Spinal Tap. I also saw Salisbury Hill. This is significant if you like Peter Gabriel.

Bath

The view from my window.

Oxford

I got to have another train trip and went to oxford. I was feeling a bit lazy and didn't really find out much about what I was seeing. I just walked around and took photos. It's a nice looking town with all the old colleges and churches everywhere. I went up a tower hoping to get some good aerial views but they weren't so good. It just wasn't that good a location to see any of the significant buildings close enough or high enough.

Oxford

Sheffield

I spent a couple of days just hanging around Sheffield relaxing and enjoying the company. The local main street has some nice little shops. The butcher has DVDs in his front window along with meat and also some old medals. I also enjoyed looking in the gallery of a Sheffield artist Pete McKee .
On Wednesday n and her friend took me to clumber park for a picnic. We didn't really have picnic because it had been raining but we ate our sandwiches and went for a walk. We accidentally walked for 2 1/2 hours. By the time we realized how far our walk was we were already half way and couldn't cut through to shorten it because there was a lake in the way. It was a really nice walk though. Clumber park is part of Sherwood forest and is where the dukes of newcastle used to hang out. It's nice going on forest walks in other parts of the world because there are so many types of greenery that we just don't have in Australia. I saw squirrels for the first time too. And mole holes. And real holly. We ate raspberries and blackberries off the bush along the way too.
On Thursday N and I caught the train up to York for the day. York is an old walled city with lots of interesting little buildings. Lots of them are very crooked. I climbed up the tower of the minster cathedral which is about 275 winding steps.

Fish therapy

The fishes nibble the dead skin off your feet. It felt funny and nice.

My highlights of Ireland

- the scenery and the live music and the pub and street in Doolin
- beating the fog at Slieve League to see the most amazing view ever
- climbing on Ballycarbury Castle on the Ring of Kerry
- visiting Belfast
- having a Guinness in Temple Bar area in Dublin
- lots of the scenery

Sheffield

I've left Ireland and am now in Sheffield in the north of England staying with my friends R and N.  And Felix.   It's so good to see them.

Ballymeena

We left our b&b in enniskillen and headed to to ballymeena just north of Belfast where kg's friend's parent's house is. We got there for lunch with them. Kg and her friend k went off sightseeing while I stayed back at the house for a rest and a went for a late afternoon walk and talked to the cows It was a nice relaxed day.
The next day after a full ulster grill for brekky at midday we made our way into Belfast. We got on a city sight seeing bus which we had all to ourselves. It was a good tour for about an hour and a half. It took us through the area of town when huge fences had been erected to separate the Catholics and Protestants and there were heaps of murals to do with the tensions and different peoples alliances. Really interesting.
One thing really noticeable about northern Ireland is the number of union jacks flying everywhere. There weren't very many Irish flags flying in the republic. Bit you very quickly know you have crossed the border onto northern ireland because of the union jacks. And because the speed limits all seemed really slow. We didn't realize for a while that they were in miles per hour and everyone had good reason to be overtaking us. There is quite a different look with the buildings too. In the republic there seemed to be a lot of painting of homes and shops in bright colours or white. But it seemed to me that in the north most houses were grey. And Guinness didn't taste so nice.

Enniskillen

We left claremorris and headed the extra long way round to enniskillen to see if we could make it to see slieve league. We headed up to Sligo where there is a huge tableland called benbulben. We saw the bottom of it. The rest of it was covered in fog. We were starting to think we were going to miss all of the speccy views because of fog but kept going anyway. We drove through donegal and finally saw what we had imagined as the rolling green hills of Ireland. We stopped at some lookouts where you were supposed do be able to see slieve league from across the water of donegal bay but all you could see was fog. But we kept going anyway. We got onto the coast heading towards slieve league and went down a little peninsula called St johns point and saw some nice coastal views but the cliffs of slieve league were foggy. But we kept going. Slieve league is sheer mountainside cliffs going into the water. They're not vertical but pretty steep and about 600 meters high. The road going up was really steep and windy. We got to the top car park and could actually see the cliffs. There was cloud up the very top so couldn't see them in all their glory but we got a pretty decent view. It has to be the most breathtaking view I have ever seen. You could walk higher up the mountain past the viewing area and higher than where they had built the protective fences. It was a fun climb up into the fog and higher views. The fog came down really fast so we walked back to the viewing area and the view was completely gone. If we'd been 15 minutes later we would have completely missed it.
We then doubled back to donegal and headed to enniskillen which is in northern Ireland. It was a long day but really worth it. Enniskillen is quite a big town but in a really beautiful green area. A nice place to be.

Northern Irish cows

Claremorris

We left doolin unfortunately after only one night. It's such a nice place with live music every night. We had toforget about the cliffs of moher again because of the thick fog. So we drove around the burren area for a bit in the fog. It was actually kind of nice driving in the fog. It was safe fog. You could see where you were going but it was thinck enough to create a real eeriness. Daytime fog is not a normal experience for me. Neither is night time fog. We stopped at a 5000 year old burial tomb which was interesting and the landscape is all limestone so something different too.
Then we headed to Cong and stopped and looked around at the old monastery ruins and saw the the ashford castle across the river. It's a really green leafy town with lots of parkland which is rare. We are getting frustrated with ireland's lack of places to stop and eat your picnic lunch. We keep ending up in the car in some bizarre town parking area to eat as picnic areas just do not exist like they do in every single town in Australia. Ireland has plenty of paddocks but they are all fenced off for cows and sheeps so you can't really have a picnic. It keeps raining anyway.
We got to our b&b in claremorris where we stayed for 2 nights. My bed had ten pillows on it.
The next day we drove part of the Connemara ring out to clifden. The mountains around there in the Connemara national park are beautiful. We saw kylemore abbey from a distance. It's really nice but you have to pay to go in so we continued on. This area you need to stay a while in so you can go for walks and explore properly.
One of the nearby towns called ballinrobe, that we had to drive through three times, has the dumbest intersection EVER. It gave us grief each time and I even ended up driving the wrong way down a one way street. I can now tick that one off the list of things you never want to do.

Some Irish green hills

Live traditional Irish music

Doolin county Clare Ireland

Doolin

Today is Sunday and we headed up to county Clare to see the cliffs of moher but the fog was too thick to bother. Our b&b is in a nearby town called doolin, famous for traditional live music. We wandered around and ended up in the pub for an early jam session and dinner. It's really cool. The musos sit around a table in the pub and different people come and join in while others leave.

Killarney

We left cork and headed to the blarney castle where the blarney stone is. I was happy just to look and not lie on my back and lean backwards over a big gap way up in the air and kiss a stone that hundreds of others have kissed. The castle was nice as well as the Druid gardens.
Then we headed toward Killarney and ended up on the wrong road but realized before too long. We got to kilarney around lunch time and discovered the self service salad bar in the department store and took our salads to eat on the grass next to Ross castle. Then went to muckross abbey which is an old ruin of a friary. Killarney is a nice town but way too much traffic for a little town. Our b&b called salmon leap is about 15 km out of town. Really nice rocky mountain views and very quiet.
The next day we drove the ring of Kerry. We took the skellig ring detour which was great because we found an old ruin of a castle to climb on. It was great because it was unattended and just standing in a cow paddock. We could easily have fallen off it and hurt ourselves but didn't. Then we found an old fort to climb on. That was fun too. Unfortunately the views weren't great because of the fog. But still a really nice drive. We stayed in the same b&b two nights just outside Killarney.

Cork

After Wexford we headed down towards cork. The only real stop we made was just before cork in cobh which is a port town and where the titanic left from. It was a little eerie walking along the dock. We arrived in cork and decided we didn't really like it. It's an old grimey depressing looking place. We walked around the town centre and struggled to find a nice inviting looking pub. Eventually we found one and then wandered around trying to find a cheap feed and discovered that doesn't exist. Our guesthouse was very nice which was lucky. It was nice to leave cork the next day.

Wexford

We picked up our hire car and headed south and stopped at he town of a avoca where ballykissangel was filmed. It's a really picturesque town with a hand weaving factory which was interesting. We arrived at our b&b and were greeted by some really friendly people. We told them how our grandmother was born in the nearby Glebe house which they knew well. We were escorted by one of the b&b family members to the house and also to the grave of several of our relatives in the yard of the church where our great great grandfather was the rector. After dinner we ended up in the kitchen at the b&b for some fun conversation.

Dublin

The next leg of my trip is in Ireland. My sister kg and I arrived in Dublin and booked into our hotel and then went for a wander and had dinner and Guinness in temple bar. I really enjoyed the Guinness. I haven't liked it before but now I do. Our hotel was pretty close to the centre of town.
The next day we went for wander to trinity college then the national gallery then the Dublin castle then St Patricks cathedral and back to hotel for dinner. And Guinness.

Walking in the Swiss alps

Swiss mountains

Switzerland

I've spent a week in the Swiss alps. It has been very relaxing. The view here is amazing. You look across the valley to snowy mountains. And the mountains are really steep. I've loved the walks. We went up a cable car to the top of one of the ski slopes and walked down. It was hard walking down because it was so steep and gravelly so very easy to slip over. Another day we went walking up in the cow pastures. All cows have bells so you can always hear them even if you can't see them. We did see them on the way back. They were right near the path and came over to say hello. I was glad because I wanted some cow photos. Twice this week we have eaten fondue for dinner. Melted cheese with bread dipped in. If you don't want tummy ache you have to not drink any cold water until the next day. You have to just drink wine and hot tea.
I went down to montreux for a day for the jazz festival. Unfortunately not much happens during the day. But I did see a uni band play and there are markets all along the edge of the lake. Montreux is on a steep hill overlooking lake Geneva so I walked up the hill a bit and explored the town. Switzerland is so cool because everything is so old.

Switzerland

Switzerland

I'm now in Switzerland at my sister's place up in the alps.  We are having beautiful weather up high here because of the heat wave - the temperatures here are around the mid 20s. On Sunday I got on a train to Basel and spent the night there.  The big thing you notice about Switzerland is how clean and tidy it is.  I thought Frankfurt was quite clean and tidy but compared to Basel it looked really grotty.  I wandered around The town centre in Basel on sunday afternoon.  All the shops were shut so not many people were around.  But heaps of people were floating down the river.  They don't swim, they just float downstream.

Sorry I can't post any photos right now.  I don't have the technology here to do it. 

So then on monday I got a train down to Lausanne and then caught another one to Aigle where my sister picked me up.  I really loved the train journeys.  I'd love to do more.  It's a great way to see the countryside and all the little towns.  Switzerland is full of little traditional looking towns with their old style house, very ornate a lot of time, and with a village church up on the hill.

I've been lazing around, going for walks and eating cheese.  It's great.

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Some Frankfurt observations

There is a park that circles the main city area with bike paths. Actually there are bike paths throughout the whole city. There are rabbits everywhere in the park and rabbit holes and rabbit poo so you don't sit on the grass. Tonight is the world cup playoff for third place between Germany and Uruguay. Every place has big tvs out for it even the ice-cream shops. No world cup no business. The city is not very congested. There are high rises but not heaps and they are interesting to look at and quite striking because they often stand alone amongst low rise buildings. Everyone smokes and there are lots of little beer joints that only serve alcohol and no food.

More frankfurt

More Frankfurt

More Frankfurt

Pretzel

I could pass as a german person today walking around in my Birkenstocks with my pretzel. I've manage to come to Europe on the middle of a heat wave. Heat wave for them. Normal Sydney hot summer for me. Except the sun is still shining at 10 pm.

Frankfurt